Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (1971) — The Tactical Rules
Theme: Foundations · 12 sentences.
ALI-001 · Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (1971) — The Tactical Rules
S777 Power is both your actual force and what the adversary believes your directed power to be.
S778 When your people operate outside their domain of competence, your collective power diminishes.
S779 Force the adversary to operate outside their domain of competence and their power diminishes.
S780 Force demands that the adversary act according to its own stated rules.
S781 Ridicule is the most potent instrument available to human persons.
S782 A tactic is good when the people who deploy it take pleasure in it.
S783 A tactic that runs without temporal limit exhausts the enjoyment that sustains it.
S784 The collective applies directed pressure to the adversary without relent.
S785 The threat signal carries greater dread than the act of force itself.
S786 Apply sufficient directed force toward a negative and it transmutes into a positive.
S787 A victorious attack carries a structural requirement: the collective must build something.
S788 Select a target; sever it from its support network; reduce it to one individual; make it the adversary.
Batch Summary
| S# | Rule | Core claim | Structural notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| S777 | 1: Power attribution | wi-ra ne ra / [la-de-li to wi-ra] |
/ parallel: actual force vs attributed force |
| S778 | 2: Stay in expertise | go {la-o-li ka lo-no-to-su}, wi-ra de |
Causal declarative |
| S779 | 3: Push adversary out | go {la-de-li ka lo-no-to-su}, wi-ra de lo-de-li |
Mirror of S778; symmetry explicit |
| S780 | 4: Hoist by own rules | la-ra wi-ra [la-de-li ka wi-fe lo-de-li] |
la-ra depersonified agent (2nd use) |
| S781 | 5: Ridicule as weapon | si-de-vo ne ra-vo-be ka-mu lo-zo-li |
W232 si-de-vo; ra-vo-be superlative first use |
| S782 | 6: Tactics people enjoy | go {la-o-li fa-vo lo-wi-to}, wi-to ne vo |
fa-vo as tactic-quality measure |
| S783 | 7: Time limits matter | go {wi-to re no-ti-fe}, fa-vo de |
no-ti-fe extremal; S782/S783 minimal pair |
| S784 | 8: Keep pressure on | la-o-li wi-ra re lo-de-li |
re on wi-ra = sustained pressure |
| S785 | 9: Threat > act | fe-si ne fa-ra-vo-be / ka-ra ne fa-ra-de |
First fa-ra grading across / parallel |
| S786 | 10: Push negative to positive | go {wi-ra lo-de-vo ra-vo-be}, du {de-vo ki vo} |
First dialectical transmutation |
| S787 | 11: Victory requires alternative | go {la-o-li ka-ra wi-du}, ne-fe [lo-o-li be wi-to] |
ne-fe as post-victory structural requirement |
| S788 | 12: Target sequence | ka lo-pa-wi ; ka-ne-de … ; ka-ru-li … ; ka-wi-de-li … |
4-op ; chain; longest tactical sequence |
New W-entries: W232 si-de-vo (ridicule, signal of value-decrease).
Compositional first uses: ra-vo-be (superlative on ra-vo); no-ti-fe (no-X-fe extremal on temporal compound); ka-ru-li (personalize); ka-wi-de-li (polarize / cast-as-adversary).
Generated from registry/entries.yaml.